Emmanuel Music heads for the end of an era in style

Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante for a quartet of soloists and orchestra offered a chance to showcase four instrumentalists from Emmanuel’s ranks: violinist Danielle Maddon, cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer, oboist Peggy Pearson, and bassoonist Thomas Stephenson. The piece is enjoyable without being top-drawer Haydn. Of the soloists, the winds made the stronger impression, while the two string players had occasional trouble projecting.

Harbison took the stage for the second half, which began with Schoenberg’s landmark Five Pieces for Orchestra in a rarely played arrangement for 11 instruments (strings, winds, piano, and harmonium). This was a revelation: Stripped of its exotic instrumental dressing, Schoenberg’s weighty score takes on a posture of unusual immediacy, as if the composer were opening his bag of secrets and bringing a listener inside. The third piece was the most radically changed: its colors, murky and dense in the original, now glinted brightly on the surface.

This version is eminently worth revisiting, both for the comparative ease of arranging a performance and for the fresh light it throws on an almost-canonical masterpiece. But it would be hard to top this performance, which was brilliantly played and expertly led by Harbison.

To close the evening, Harbison chose Haydn’s Symphony No. 70. It is not a well-known symphony, which only makes more astonishing its surfeit of treasures: tricky rhythms, intricate counterpoint, an unexpectedly austere trio, and a finale that’s alternately solemn and teasing. If this sounds severe or overly learned, it isn’t, thanks to Haydn’s ever-present mix of wit and buoyancy.

The lengthy ovation at the end was undoubtedly not just for the performances, which were eminently deserving, but for the two conductors and their service to an organization in its time of need.